


Letters from a Warden -01

by Tak



Series: Letters from a warden [1]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tak/pseuds/Tak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke travels to Lothering to visit her old home. On arrival she finds a stack of old mail from her cousin. And through her letters got to see exactly how the year of blight was in Ferelden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letters from a Warden -01

Hawke woke to a little hand slapping her in the face. She groaned seeing the light already spilling through the flaps of the tent she decided to get up. Boone their youngest tucked adorably against her fathers side sleeping peacefully despite rudely waking her mother. She chuckled softly stroking her daughters red locks. She looked so much like her father. Both of the twins did, having his tan skin, straight nose, and lithe figure.  
Boone got Hawke's Red hair, where Willow got her shade of green eyes.  
She slipped out of the tent silently and left them sleeping. 

Sunshine sat next to Willow bathed in the early morning glow. A kettle hanging over the fire for tea, and the two sisters talked quietly drawing pictures in the dirt, one dark head pressed against blond. Morfudd the Mabari hound supervised the lesson from his place by the fire.  
Hawk kissed Sunshine on the head "You could have woke me." She told her daughter "You don't have to babysit."  
"It's fine. I don't mind." She pulled her golden hair back out of her face and returned to the pictures.  
"Mama, this is where we are." Willow announced proudly, pointing what Hawke now realised was a map. The small child pointing at Ferelden. "This is where we were." She drew a line up to the Free Marches and Kirkwall.  
"Very clever." She congratulated her.  
"Sun drew the map, and she taught me the places."  
She smiled "Sun's a very clever big sister."  
The older girl looked up at her mother with Golden eyes "Are we far from Lothering?" Hawke stood and walked the girls to the edge of camp, where they looked down the gently rolling hill to a cluster of small houses in a valley.  
"And that's where you grew up?" She asked her mother.  
Hawke nodded. "The house on the end, I lived there with my mother and father, and my brother and sister."  
"But they all died in the blight." Sunshine said solemnly.  
"Where did daddy live?" Willow blurted.  
"Don't be silly." Sun scolded her "You know he comes from across the sea."  
"But we crossed the sea."  
Her older sister rolled her eyes. "The other way."  
"Mama!"  
Hawke laughed "Sun's right, you father is from a place called Tevintar, but we won't be going there for a long while."  
"Why not?"  
"They don't like the pointy ears." Sunshine interrupted.  
Before the younger child could ask what her sister meant by the comment, Hawke pointed at another house in the cluster. "Aunty Arianne lived there almost right next door, since we were your size, we use to get up to all sorts mischief together." She put her arm around Sunshine, who returned the gesture, and rested her other hand on Willow's head.  
Hawke often forgot that her child remembered the cell they met in, brought together by Tevintar slaver. The twins were lucky, their father was tall for an elf, so combining that with the few human features they got from their mother and their young age, they hadn't been effected by the racism held over from the old days. Sunshine looked Dailish, there was no two ways about it. Over the years she had inherited her fathers scowl and her mothers wit but it wouldn't change her golden hair or amber eyes.  
"Let us have tea while we wait for the sleepy heads." She said finally. "Practice some more places?" 

"Lothering" Fenris announced as they entered. "I though it would be different."  
Hawke laughed "Well it was until it was over run by dark spawn." They passed the steps into the village she stopped and picked a rosé from the road side. "It was quite beautiful once" she uttered watching the girls chased each other down empty streets.  
"I can't believe no one came back to rebuild after all these years."  
She tucked the rosé into a button hole in his shirt. "Like us I guess people made their lives else where." She kissed his cheek "If all the other villagers lives were half as eventful as mine, I can understand why no One came back."  
"Mama!" Boone exclaimed pointing to a red crest hanging over the door of a burnt house. Charred and half collapsed her family home stood before her. She pushed on the burnt door and peered inside, two curious little heads pushing past her legs.  
"Girls, don't be so impatient." She called to them as they ran in poking and prodding all the things they could get their hands on.  
Sunshine stopped, stooping down and lifting a pile of letters out of the dust.  
"Ma, look at this." She called out. The letters were old, years old, the envelopes covered in dirt and dust, some torn or chewed others growing with what ever weed had taken root in the fibres. Every one addressed to her. She took out her dagger and split the seal of red was on the letter that was dated the earliest.

_My dearest cousin.  
I survived Ostigar..._

She opened another.

_Cousin  
Today I met the Dalish, I spoke to werewolves and a Forrest spirit. _

She flicked to the last one and opened that.

_I send this to you the night before I meet the arch demon..._

"They are all from Dae." She breathed "The whole year she was a grey warden." She flicked through the stack "Her story."  
She found a seat in the light of the afternoon, And returned to the first letter. Fenris sensing she needed time ushered the girls back out side. 

_My dearest cousin_  
I survived Ostigar, though this letter is late in coming you may have already heard. I passed through Lothering and thought of you, though I couldn't find you. I hope at least you had left before the blight. I will send these letters here as its the only address I have for you, I hope one day you'll find them. Or I'll find you, we will have so much to talk about.  
The friends I have made! a Witch of the Wilds, a Qunari, another Grey warden who was almost a Templar, and a Rogue. All make up my party along with a mighty Mabari. I had never felt of use with these people until today... 

Arrows rained down, spinning her staff creating a shield covering herself. She stamped the staff down ice ripping forward across the grass. Freezing the foes that stood in her way. Allowing her comrades to hack them down.  
She heard it before she saw it, the hissing scream of an arrow in flight. The rogue, Zevran pushed her out of the way both of them falling to the ground with his last minute hasty action that quite possibly saved her life. "Come now Warden, if I can't kill you I can't let these uncouth bandits do it."  
He pulled her to her feet, wincing as he did.  
"Are you alright?"  
He flashed her a grin at her, "Of course."  
She looked around her comrades "Is every one un harmed?"  
Morrigan and Wynne both nodded, Alistair took his helmet from his head and touched a stream of blood that began to trickle down from his head.  
"By the maker!" She exclaimed leaving Zevran's side. Reaching into a satchel for cloth and her water bottle, She stretched up onto her tip toes to reach his forehead. Her dark eyebrows crossed her deep blue eyes, concerned at the amount of blood.  
Slowly she cleared it away as the wound begin to clot. Revealing a small cut.  
"Andraste's petticoats." She clapped him on the heavily armoured shoulder. "You had me worried Alistair!"  
"What? Half my head isn't cracked open?" He quipped. "It feels like it."  
She summoned a warm feeling in her fingertips, releasing a small glow and touched the wound,  
"Ah!" Alistair winced as swiftly the cut was mended.  
"You big sook." She said softly as he looked down on her with grateful eyes.  
"Will it scar? All I have is my looks, I can't ruin them now."  
She giggled. "Your face is saved for another day."  
"My hero."  
She looked about, attempting to check on Zevran once again. There was something in his smile that made her think of an animal hiding its wound for fear of becoming easy pray. Like a good rogue he had disappeared into the Forrest.  
"Shall we make camp?" She suggested clapping her hands together "I don't know about you all but those bandits gave me quite a fright. I could use a break."  
"We should make more ground, get closer to Redcliff." Wynne suggested, punctuating her words with a wise smile.  
Dae looked at her mentor "Just a night. We will walk twice as far tomorrow." She pressed her hands together "Please."  
Wynne laughed at the young woman. "Twice as far tomorrow."  
The young woman jumped, her robes and braids bouncing. "Thank you."

Camp set, a broth boiling over the fire, her Mabari already snoring in the warmth of the afternoon. Zevran arrived again his steps slow and lethargic. He looked at the pack that was his tent and bent to set it up.  
"You lied to me." Dae told him sternly, holding up the post so he could tie it down.  
"Just once?" He asked.  
"Today, at least,"  
He faulted as he stood, she stepped forward to offer a hand. He negated her help continuing to methodically set up his night lodgings.  
"A wise and talented assassin like your self must be seeing the signs of blood poisoning." She crossed her arms "Sweat on the brow, weak knees," as he turned to face her she took his chin and examined his eyes. Which were beginning to redden. "Unless... Did you fall in love with out me, while you were in the bushes."  
He laughed but said nothing in response, blinking slowly.  
"Oh you are unwell." She pulled back the flap on the tent and sat him down. Looking him over for injuries. It was an arrow, poison tipped no doubt. She could see no immediate shaft. She pulled the weapons off his back and ran her hands across his body feeling for a break in the Dalish armour he was wearing.  
"You could just ask, if you really wanted to touch me." He said, his speech beginning to slur.  
She chuckled. "Down lover boy." As she began to shed his armour. The arrow head revealing itself. His caramel skin puckered around the entry wound in his lower back one small piece of the arrow head embedded just down from his shoulder blade.  
She sighed "I need to get the last of it out." She reached passed him for his dagger. Diving out of the tent she snatched the flagon and mug off Oghren.  
"Get back here you long legged she witch." Cursed the dwarf as she strode back to the rogue.  
Chucking the dagger in the mug she tipped the liquor in with it. She could smell it its pungent aroma, turning her nose up at it.  
"This will hurt." She warned him "I'm guessing a lot."  
"You would not be the first woman to cause me pain." He muttered. Snatching the flagon and taking a swig. She took a deep breath and pressed the blade In next to entry hole. His weapon was surgically sharp. She had expected no less. She opened the hole and tried to leaver the piece of arrow head out. It was barbed holding onto the flesh with steel determination. Zevran didn't flinch. Alastair had moaned at his little cut but the Crow had not faltered once. Blood freely oozed from under the blade. Finally it lifted, carefully with precise fingers she gripped the edge of it and pulled. It was then he felt it, letting a short cry escape his lips.  
"Do you want a souvenir?" She asked, holding up the arrow covered in his blood. He offered up a hand listlessly, he felt her place the shard on his palm and she return to his body as he looked it over. He felt one of her dainty hands lay over the open wound, he assumed the pressure would hurt and awaited the stabbing pain to shoot through his body. But she wasn't staunching the wound. Her touch felt Warm, her left arm braced across the front of his chest and her forehead rested against the back of his neck. He felt the sensation start in his bones, it radiated, like light flowing through him, making his heart race, she took a deep breath and he felt it, as if he was taking a deep breath. The skin began to knit its self back together and finally she let her breath go and released him. Reaching into the satchel she carried with her, she took out a cloth and wiped off the blood.  
"There." she said softly, her voice pulling on the edge of tiredness "Good as new. Well that part any way." Her fingertips trailed down where the mark should have been not even a scar remained. She did note a few other marks across his back, her fingers lingering on his flesh a little too long. He moved, arm reaching for the flagon again. Finding something to dull the ache between his ears.  
"Oh no you don't." She tutted pulling it out of his reach. "I shouldn't have let you have that first one."  
He reached again, leaning over her as she held it just out of reach. "I don't know how much you know about poisons Warden, but with out that, this isn't going to be a fun night."  
With a hand on his chest she pushed him back. "I happen to know a lot more about surviving poisons than you do." She swilled the bottle "and this is going to hurt more than it helps. If you continue to fight me, I will incapacitate you."  
He laughed feverishly, renewing his attempt for the bottle. The heat in his brain turning it into a single thought processing machine. "How will you do that little flower?"  
She brought a hand in front of his face, and snapped her fingers the speed emanating outward from the click, tendrils of magic grabbing him and pulling him down into the land of dreams.  
He fought it at first, his blond eyebrows crossing as he realised what she had done.  
"You..." His sentence trailed as his lids shut. He fell forward into her his head resting against her chest.  
"Oh, if only you were awake, I'd never hear the end of this." She muttered flicking out his bedroll and lying him back on it. She tucked the few stray hairs off his sweaty brow before pulling a blanket over him. She cleaned his blade, and lay it tidily with his other weapons and armour before collecting, the flagon mug and dirty rags.  
"Returned with thanks." She said to Oghren placing it back in front if him.  
"About bloody time." The dwarf grumped taking a swig.  
"I don't know how you drink that swill, its only good for sterilising equipment." She shook her head.  
"You should try it some time." He told her "Might loosen those braids up a little, princess."  
"You think I should tie them under my chin like you do Oghren? I don't think I'd look half as dashing"  
The dwarf snorted in response, rendered bashful by the beautiful warden. She smiled as she wiped the blood off her hands habitually.  
"By the maker child!" Wynne exclaimed at the bloody mess she was. "Let me get my soaps."  
She was sat down by the fire on a log, while Wynne filled a bucket of water and preceded to scrub her hands for her.  
"Is this why you wanted to stop for the night?" She asked running the young girls soapy hands between her aged ones.  
Dae sighed "Alistair will come to you if he stubbed his toe, but Zev..." She shook her head.  
"Zevran is a different person entirely." Wynne smiled at the girl "You will probably be the first person to show him any kindness. Of which I am Still unsure why."  
Dae thought back to the ambush, the group of assassins that had set up the road block to catch her and Alistair.  
She had been stupid enough to wander into the trap, trusting the woman's plea for help. Like always however her reputation preceded her, and the assassins were only expecting a timorous healer.  
After all that was all she was, but she was a healer with a lot of luck and good friends.  
The only Crow left alive, he gave up trade secrets to live, on bended knee offered his service for his life.  
"I am very talented," he had said, her first introduction to his mischievous smile. "I could polish your armour, warm your bed."  
She had laughed out loud, her cheeks reddening at his offer.  
She had let him go, let him swear his oath, despite Alistair's protests. She was a healer, everything she did came from feelings, intuition, watching and reading and Somehow she trusted him.  
"Every one deserves a second chance." She said looking up to the wise Mage.  
"Every one?" Wynne whipped her face, clearing the few spots.  
She put her hand on Wynnes "Not every one. But he does"  
"I hope your right."

Dinner had been served and eaten, most of her companions had taken to their respective tents. Dae still sat by the fire watching the logs crackle.  
"You can't sleep either?" Alistair asked, the last one awake with her who was not on watch.  
"The nightmares have become more frequent." She said softly "I just kind of sleep when I really need to now."  
He huffed "I guess being a Grey Warden isn't really as advertised. See the world, cure the blight. If they led with the whole, "blight filled nightmares" and "hunted for treason" in take would dwindle to nothing."  
She chuckled "I like to think on the bright side, they could have left me in the Circle to chew off my own feet in boredom."  
He flashed her his most charming grin "Your far better looking with your feet still attached."  
"Thank you. I think." They paused for a minute before both breaking into quiet awkward laughter.  
"I am glad it was you who survived Ostigar. Not saying I didn't want any one else to live," he sighed falling over his words. "I mean, I'm glad you survived as well."  
She paced her hand on his as it rested on is knee "I'm glad your here too."  
He looked from her hand up her slender arm covered to the wrist by her circle Mage robes, the green fabric almost shimmering in the fire light, up to her face. Her button nose wrinkled as she smiled at him, her dark hair framing her fair face, the heat of the fire brining a blush to her cheeks.  
"I should..." He stood up "go to bed, big day tomorrow," he began to stride quickly off to his tent. "Good night" he called back. Pushing the heavy canvas out of the way he sighed to him self "smooth Alistair." He flopped onto his bedroll looking up at the fabric of the tent.  
"Real smooth"  
Dae chuckled, Alistair, if he could hide behind his humour, could talk your ear off. She must have thrown him off guard. Bed was a good idea, the moon was climbing higher into the night sky. She passed Zevran's tent on the way to her own. Stopping in to see how he was. She knelt down next to him, touching his forehead with the back of her hand. There was still a heat to him but at least the fever had broken. His breath came in short sharp gasps. Struggling against his own nightmares, she placed a hand on his chest to try and calm him. She could feel his heart race beneath her palm. Her other hand stroking his hair. "Quiet now." She whispered.  
She watched over him for a couple of hours until her eyes would stay open no longer. Kissing his forehead she slipped from the tent.  
Stripping her self down to her soft cotton chemise, She clambered into her bed. Her heavily lids closing as soon as her head hit the pillow. 

Bleary eyed she pulled her head off her pillow and looked out at the slowly growing light. One braid had fallen out of its bun, cascading down her shoulder. She pulled the other out running her fingers through her long black hair pulling at the knots as she padded across the grass to check on her patient.  
She stuck her head in the tent, his breathing had slowed, his colour returning to its usual healthy tan. She crept in next to him to have a better look.  
He moved, faster than she expected any one was capable of this time of the morning. Pinning her flat on her back with a knife to her throat. She gasped the sudden action startling her, she held up her hands in surrender, her eyes widened as his narrowed.  
"You put me to sleep." He growled "knocked me out cold with a click of your fingers."  
She swallowed feeling the blade press against her, remembering how sharp it was. She kept her breath even despite the terror that was crawling through her brain all of Wynne's warnings and Morrigan's jokes fuelling her fear. "I healed the wound, but the poison lingered, I spared you a night of hallucinations and pain."  
His face softened, and the blade slowly moved away from her throat. She was given enough room to sit up.  
"I'm sorry, if that made you uncomfortable." She stammered.  
Sitting there with her wide blue eyes, and youthful looks it was easy to forget the power she possessed. She looked like a doll, her hair tumbling in wavy curls across her shoulders, the shorter tufts over her face.  
"You could have warned me."  
"I did, you didn't believe I could." She smiled, "called me a little flower. As if a flower could never hurt a person."  
"I have been educated." He ran his fingers down a lock of her hair. "The most innocent and beautiful of flora are the most deadly. It's a pity you aren't an assassin you'd be incredibly good at it."  
"Except." She said taking his hand and patting it as she moved for the exit "I'm a healer."  
"That you are my little flower, that you are."  
He watched her as she climbed out, her chemise clinging to her legs, accentuating the curve of her back and her rump. It was so easy to forget what lay beneath the giggles and the tightly braided buns. He smiled remembering her ebony hair spilling freely across his bedroll, the way the light caught her clavicle. She was a stunning creature, he felt more than a little guilty about scaring her as he did.

Exiting the tent he stretched surveying the camp on the bright spring morning. Wandering over to the low burning embers of the camp fire.  
Morrigan offered a side long glance across his half naked body.  
"You like what you see?" He quipped to the witch.  
"Oh this look isn't for you crow, its for the Wardens handy work." Her tone was as droll as ever. "She is very good." She continued to mutter, eyeing him as if he was no more than a canvas for some great artist.  
"I'm alive so I will respect the skill, but I know nothing of its artistry. My talents are some what opposite."  
The witch crossed her arms. "Imagine if you will, training in such arts, focusing entirely on saving others lives, leaving yourself open for any attack without a single defence." She took a seat by the fire. "Not only leaving yourself vulnerable but depleting your self of energy. To what? Save another's life?"  
He frowned at the witches words. "What do you mean?" His knowledge of magic was limited but as far as he knew most of the magi arts used mana, it was only the forbidden blood magics that used life force.  
"You see, our dear Dae, is not just any normal healer, fixing bumps and Alistair's booboos. She's a spirit healer. Knits bones back together and can drag some one back from the edge of the fade." Her purple lips curled in a knowing smirk, pleased to have one up on the assassin. "That takes love, or madness. Personally I say the latter."  
He swallowed pulling his shirt on over his head, looking in the direction of Dae's tent just as she happened to exit. She dusted down her robes, straightened every wrinkle, made sure the collar was up to her throat, the cuffs sat right down on her wrists. She pulled a spoon from her bag and fussed with her fringe making sure everything was perfect, proper and neat.  
"Mother always talked about spirit healers like they were ancient withered old sages, but she did speak of them with reverence." The witch sighed following his line of sight to the young woman waving an excited hello to Alistair, who preceded to smile like a dragon on a pile of gold upon seeing her. "She respected a person who could trust the world so whole heatedly." She looked back to Zevran who through out the whole interaction had not once stopped watching the warden. "Unlike people like us."  
His attention was snapped back to her. "To be privileged enough to know trust."

_... I continue on to Redcliff, We have these treaties. The grey wardens can call forth and army in the time of blight. If Loghain hadn't betrayed us we wouldn't need them, but I fear we may need every soul._  
Wish me luck with the Arl,I hear his wife is from Orlis. Perhaps when this is done we should go to Orlis? Bethany could join us, I hear they don't have a circle there or at least its different there. We could wear silks like real ladies it would be grand.  
Any way I'm rambling now  
Much love to you Bethany, Carver and the family.  
Xoxo  
Dae. 

***


End file.
